I received this rifle from my Dad who got it from my Great Uncle. I know its an Enfield but i was hoping someone could shed some more light on what i have. Someone took an Enfield and converted it to a bolt action hunting rifle but thats all i know. I dont know anything about the scope or whether the .303 is even a good hunting round etc. Not that its for sale since it was passed down to me but any idea on its value? any info would be greatly appreciated.

Id post pics if i knew how but the photobucket link should work.

http://s1215.photobucket.com/user/tpharr007/library/Enfield%20rifle?sort=3&page=1

The 303 is a decent cartridge pushing the 150 gr at 2680 fps though a test barrel. Through your barrel 100 fps less wouldn't be surprising. A 30/30 is rated at 2390 so it's a significant step up. Actually it's pretty close to the 300 Savage. By comparison the 30/06 will push a 150 at a bit over 2900 fps.

It looks like a bsa built Rifle No. 4 Mk I but could be wrong , is there a date on the metal band behind the tang ? lots of these rifle were sporterized for deer rifles. Golden state also did a lot of conversions with these actions .

Ill check for a date tonight

Its a good cartridge and some branches of the Canadian military were still using it up until relatively recently; the last time I was in Canada I got to talking with an old man from British Columbia about hunting and what calibers they used, who stated that....

"The .303 has probably killed more moose and deer in Canada than all other cartridges combined; the native Canadian tribes(Indians) used it almost exclusively for decades on their hunts and ALOT of white hunters did too."

A lot of the converted hunting Enfields are done rather sloppy....Yours looks rather beautiful and as far as the scope; when that rifle was converted Redfield was probably as good of a piece of glass as the average hunter could get their hands on and was probably second only to Weaver.

That rifle is very nicely redone. Probably a good shooter.

If you can post detailed pictures of the car-touches, someone on this board can probably decode it for you. Every one of those marks has a meaning.

One side is stamped England and the other is stamped

G.R.
BSA co
1918
SmLE
III

There should also be armorer proof markings designating the arsenal and/or regiment it was assign to. These are usually pictographs and a letter or numbers

EDIT:
I see some additional marks
BNP = British Nitro Proof (passed proof test)
303 = caliber
53 = A new barrel was installed in 1953. (probably sent back to the arsenal after WWII for refurb)

It does have some other markings but a lot of them I can't make out because of the bluing put on the gun and some of the stamps overlap other stamps

Short magazine lee enfield , probably one of the fastest bolt actions ever made very nice . Its probably a shooter too

Thanks for the info on the barrel. That explains why the rifling so sharp when iook down the barrel

Excellent deer rifle; designed to take down a horse at up to 1000 yards w/ tang sight (calvary).
(hunting) ammo not the cheapest,nor a lot of varieties available, but soft-points usually available year round.

Looks like a decent, older "sporterizing" job on a MK III to me. I would not hesitate to hunt deer with it after some range time. Can't tell much about the scope but I would change that before taking it out anyway. The .303 at 2600+ fps with a 150 gr. bullet has taken a lot of game in Africa and as mentioned above Canada as well as the US. What is the trigger pull like?

Ive only dry fired it once to feel the trigger and it feels pretty darned heavy. Serms to have a decent break to it though. Will definitely require alot of trigger time but if what others have implied, thats going to get expensive.

Ammo is about the same as any other hunting round. I shot one a LOT as a kid when ammo was a lot more scarce. My dad bought a Lee loader for about $20 and we reloaded our own. I am sure they cost twice that now days. I mostly shot 150 grain Sierra slugs (can't remember which ones). I used a 6x Redfield scope and found that to be a pretty good option. It was lethal on anything 200 yds and less.